Friday, April 24, 2009

2008-09 5v5 Goaltender Performance

The 2008-09 results are below (minimum 700 minutes played at 5v5). The last column, DELTAGAA, shows how much lower a goaltender's Goals-Against-Average was than we would expect it to be given the shots he faced. Henrik Lundqvist, Tim Thomas and Jonas Hiller are the only goaltenders who appear in the Top 10 both this year and last year.

1. The numbers indicate that Boston's excellent team EV save percentage is primarily a product of goaltending, rather than defence. Likewise for Florida.

2. It would appear that the Blackhawks are poor at preventing high quality shots against, relative to total shots against. Minnesota, on the other hand, is excellent.

3. Some of the goalies that have performed poorly this year in terms of (EV) save percentage, such as Osgood and Toskala, appear to have faced more difficult shot quality.

4. Arena bias has an affect on some of the numbers. MSG seriously underestimates shot distance, whereas the reverse is true for HSBC and St. Pete Times. Thus, the numbers for Miller, Smith, and Lundqvist may not be strictly representative of the true quality of shots faced.